AMD Sues Past Employees For Taking 100,000 Files To NVIDIA

Posted by Nathan Kirsch| Wed, Jan 16, 2013 - 10:51 AM

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is taking four former employees to court — one vice president and three managers from the firm’s Boxborough, Mass., plant — who left the company to go and work for rival NVIDIA last year. The chipmaker is accusing them of coping more than 100,000 confidential documents and trade secrets to take with them.

The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, claims former vice president Robert Feldstein, along with managers Manoo Desai, Nicolas Kociuk and Richard Hagen, took the files before they left the company. AMD said it wants to recover the files, which the company claims cover everything from upcoming AMD technology to contracts with enterprise customers. The court has already issued a temporary restraining order against the four former employees, ordering the preservation of any copies of AMD materials they may have and any computers or devices they may own. They also must not divulge or use any confidential information from AMD. Feldstein left AMD in July, according to reports, after he helped broker major contracts to see AMD technology launch in the next-generation range of games consoles, including the Xbox, PlayStation, and the Wii U, before he left for NVIDIA.